Welcome to this week's blog. Claire Armitstead here with the sad (for us) news that it's Hannah's last week before she sets off for a whizzy new job. I'm sure you'll all agree that she's been a brilliant host of this column. I'll be taking over for the time being, until we find a new community co-ordinator. In the meantime, here are some of the books you've been talking about this week (and here's a handy bottle of bubbly for a virtual send-off for Hannah):

I've just emerged from reading The Goldfinch, and have to say found it a rather good read, not quite a cathedral of a large read, more a large shopping complex with ample restaurant options and upmarket bespoke shopping outlets. Particularly apt I felt was Tartt's use of Radiohead's 'paranoid android' and their lyric "For a minute there I lost myself" which seemed to sum up Theo's fall into darkness perfectly.

I decompressed a little with Tess Gerritsen's'The Silent Girl , from her Rizzoli & Isles series, a perfect police/medical procedural, fast paced, tightly plotted and am about to start The House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende which I'm rather excited about.

On a non fictional note I read Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain by Charlotte Higgins of this parish, and it's a really fascinating read, being part travelogue and part exploration of what Roman Britain has meant as an idea to those who came after. (Can I have my book tokens now please Eds?:) )

Alice Munro with a cup of coffee! With Alice Munro I rediscovered the joys of short stories. Like most Nobel laureates, she puts the human condition under a microscope and wraps up a whole lifetime into the small, neat package of a short story.

Just finished Angel by Elizabeth Taylor - a very original style - completely without pretension - very honest and direct - with a superbly drawn anti-heroine. Before that I read Rembering Babylon by David Malouf - this had many good moments but became somewhat impressionistic and imprecise in its use of language - the mysticism seemed unfocussed towards the end - a shame as much of his descriptive work was very fine indeed. Now on Heay Water and other stories - Martin Amis.

I am reading the Norwegian writer Per Petterson's first book to be published, though only recently translated into English, it is the sequel to I Curse The River of Time, another brilliant read. This one reads like a series of short stories, snapshots in time during the childhood of Arvid, character generating events.

And finally, I'm delighted to find that
AggieH shares one of my own enthusiams:

﻿Recent reads included Michelle De Kretser’s Questions of Travel. Wonderful. An involving tale that tucks interesting themes inside parallel storylines. Displacement – geographic, social, cultural, personal. Travel - as flight, as departure, as arrival, as experience, as loss, as hope. Belonging, or not – in cultures, in communities, in families, at work. (There are some particularly witty passages that expose the daily pointlessness of much modern office life.) I both enjoyed and admired De Kretser’s The Hamilton Case. Questions of Travel is even better. De Kretser can turn a phrase like a craftsman. Or perhaps that should be ‘craftswoman’; her ability to convey a situation or character in a quick aside reminds me of Adichie, Mantel and Lahiri. Lorrie Moore, too.

If you would like to share a photo of the book you are reading, or film your own book review, please do. Click the blue button on this page to share your video or image. I'll include some of your posts in next week's blog.